<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2802" name=GENERATOR></HEAD> <BODY id=role_body style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: #000000; FONT-FAMILY: = Arial" bottomMargin=7 leftMargin=7 topMargin=7 rightMargin=7> <DIV> <DIV>  Hi Paul</DIV> <DIV>   I didn't se any response to this.  A v= ery artistic picture of this piece. Well written & passionate. Tha= nks for taking the time.</DIV> <DIV>   Dale Erwin</DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><= FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size= =2>ing for Jeux d'eau by Ravel. ......"Written on the manuscript by Ravel,= and often included on published editions, is "Dieu fluvial riant de l'eau = qui le chatouille... / Henri de Régnier" which in English editions is translated to "River god laughing as the water tickles him..."; this quote is from Régnier's Fête d'eau as a note that the piece is to = be played lightly."   (from Wikipedia) I think it convey= s a great deal more than 'to be played lightly'  (though that is certainly correct!). This is practically direct orders to play it i= n a meantone tuning. The tickling is perfectly expressed in the E major seventh chord, which immediately provokes the laughter, an A major sev= enth chord. The laugh arpeggio's note speed doubles.  A major is the sub-dominant of E: in sharps keys the sub dominant is a step back down= the energy-excitement scale, so the tickling of the E seventh is acting on= the A. The objective in tickling is to provoke a higher energy state in th= e one being tickled, and a burst of laughter; which  'vibrates' fas= ter than the act of the tickling.  E major has another quality of tickling; the G#-Eb  diminished sixth, which is the secret specia= l energy source in the E major seventh that provokes the thirty-second n= ote outburst in the A major arpeggio. (Think of G#-D# as a fifth that is 1= 5 cents wide, and tremolos like a third, it's character changing in the different registers just as a wide third changes.) Well, I d= o have a little 'story' about what pictures and sounds this tone poem is= portraying, I'm reluctant to try to tell the whole story in words, if = only because the picture-sound story is always changing; the better I play = the piece, the clearer the voices are, the more I can hear them say. The sounds of the music evoke images of fountains and cascades and pools t= hat produce those sounds. I will say this: the piece needs to start in = E major to have the variety and contrasts required for the story.  = E major is at one extreme of the eight 'Major Thirds keys and so there a= re ample resources both 'up' the energy scale, and also 'down' the energy= scale. And the 'up' harmonic modulation immediately leads to the quasi-diminished fourth keys.  ( The Major thirds keys are  = C, G, D, A, and E; and F, Bb and Eb. The diminished fourths keys are B, C= #, F#, G#.)  So there are contrasts of Mode, which are great enough = to express the extremes of emotion and physical sensation, and the contra= st between air and water. Example; ever see somebody laughing so hard it'= s really not clear whether they're laughing or crying?  Tickling ca= n be everything from friendly to provocative to cruel. The last, big= gest cascade falls into a pool, carrying air with the water deep Deep DEEP = and then the air explodes upward into foam, and the wavelets spread out= in larger circles as the energy subsides. F# Major (a diminished fourth k= ey) and C Major (the purest Major third key) can't get away from each othe= r - it's a 'resolution' that doesn't resolve at all, except as the two extremes work it out; but they never quite do work it out. Notice this= is the only section in the piece where an 'odd' number of rhythmic impuls= es defines a section: the rising and falling patterns of arpeggios in thi= s long unmeasured gesture happen 43 times. The sounds of F# and C are essential to this - perhaps F# being the 'air' and C being the 'water'= . The F#-A# diminished fourth is pretty wide (about twice as wide as an = 'ET' third) - which gives it a great variety of expressions in the differen= t registers of the keyboard. In the lowest bass it's tremolo slow but insistent; an octave higher it has a pleasing vocal vibrato effect, another octave and it becomes irritating, above that it becomes like a= siren. But C major it pure, that purity is much more the same in all registers.  What better to express the difference between air and= water? The last eight bars sound like the brook disappearing in= to the distance. The tickling fades away, and the last we hear is the E-B= fifth (a quiet fifth, nearly pure) in the bass, and the G#-D#(Eb)&nbsp= ; wolf fifth in octave 6-7, where it's tickling characteristic has passe= d out of view, So we have relief from the tickling that started it all i= n the beginning, but it's still there..... Paul Bailey </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV> <DIV></DIV> <DIV> </DIV></BODY></HTML>